Winter's War
by Osaru Sensei
Summary: The CEO of the Schnee Dust Company brings her daughter to a board meeting. What will she learn?
**Writer's block when attempting to go for _Physics of Friendship_ chapter 5. Maybe this'll help.**

* * *

Their steps clattered in the hallways as mother and daughter Schnee moved with purpose through the Schnee Dust Company's headquarters. When they arrived in the hall outside the main conference room, they were greeted by the holographic receptionist.

"Ah, Mrs and Miss Schnee! You are just in time, they've almost begun. I'll give them a heads-up you're he-" The Schnee matriarch held up a hand, causing the hologram to halt.

"That won't be necessary, Neva. I'd much prefer to arrive unannounced for this."

"As… you wish, Mrs Schnee." The older woman took her daughter's hand and walked up to the large pine doors. Pushing them open, she was met by a large oak wood table in the middle of a sizeable room. One of the men sitting around the table noticed her and rose to greet her.

"Ah, Weiss! How lovely to see you! I'm quite excited to see why you called this meeting of the board, what with all the secrecy and smokescreens you've put around it. And this lovely young lady must be your daughter Bianca!" He took the younger girls hand and kissed it.

"Oh please stop, Nigellus. She's less than half your age."

"One has to begin sometime when it comes to suck up to the next boss." Weiss frowned as Bianca chuckled.

"Yes mother dearest, wasn't this the exact reason you brought me along? To groom me as the next sovereign of the SDC?"

"I like her already!" Nigellus laughed.

"Let's begin the meeting then, shall we? Now that we're here. Bianca, you can pull up a chair and observe." Weiss sat down at the head of the table. Keying a console, she rattled through a quick attendance list.

"As our first order of business – how are the drones operating? No malfunctions, I trust?"

A short, pudgy bespectacled old woman rose.

"All drones are working at nominal capacity, we have scheduled a meeting with the factory to discuss purchase of further models." Weiss nodded.

"Good. Thank you, Crystal. Next – finance." A tall, lanky man rose.

"Chairwoman Schnee will be happy to hear everybody will receive one hundred percent on their paycheque this month as well." A murmuring chuckle resounded in the room.

"She will indeed, Sterling." Weiss smiled back at the man as he sat back down.

"And now for the main reason I called for this meeting..." Weiss smile took on an artificial quality as she continued.

"For the last two weeks, I have been receiving strange threatening notes and this _delightful_ video." She plugged her scroll into a slot on her chair and activated the screen on the wall opposite her end of the table.

* * *

 _The picture was dark and grainy._

 _When it gained focus, it was on a Faunus woman's crying face. It zoomed out to show that she was being held down on her back by four men. There was no sound to the file, but she was obviously screaming in terror as a fifth man's feet became visible near her head. The camera moved closer as the cameraman gave the new man a hole punch and a piece of plastic. The woman started begging as the man put the piece of plastic over the right fox ear of his victim, and she cried out in agony as he earmarked her. When she had broken down into quiet sobbing, the five men started tearing at her clothes as she weakly protested..._

* * *

Weiss kept on smiling that artificial smile as she turned off the video.

"It gets progressively worse from there." A young woman at the far end of the table could be heard sobbing, valiantly trying to breathe normally again. The rest of the board members were very pale-faced.

"… I hardly need to remind you that while my father took no issue with racism towards Faunus, I. _Will_." She regarded the board members one at a time, still smiling, but her voice held a barely supressed tone of burning wrath to it.

"The new policy I enforced when I took over as CEO after my _dearly_ departed racist of a father clearly states that discrimination of this level is grounds for dismissal, if not outright arrest. That being said…" She keyed a sequence on her armrest as she spoke.

"My Chief Security Officer, Miss Belladonna, managed to trace the SP number of the person that sent me the video. Conveniently, it is the same person who sent me the notes." She turned to Nigellus.

"You should have written the notes on paper that didn't carry your personal letterhead, Nigellus. I will consider these notes your official request for resignation. In light of our past friendship, I will not press charges – provided you leave quietly and don't try anything foolish. I have called for security, they will escort you off the premises." Nigellus just sputtered indignantly.

"Wha-… why…" He rose to his feet and stormed off towards the door. As he passed Bianca, he gave her a polite smile.

"We'll meet again someday, I'm _sure_ …" Suddenly a large, black glyph appeared in the air beside him, throwing him into the wall.

"Don't threaten my daughter, Nigellus." Weiss stood watching Nigellus carefully, Myrtenaster aimed squarely at his chest. Nigellus just muttered something under his breath and hobbled out into the waiting arms of SDC security.

* * *

As the board meeting came to a close, Bianca walked up to her mother who was packing up her things.

"What did we learn today, Bianca?"

"Sometimes you need to overlook past friendships to do what must be done for the greater whole."

"Yes… Yes. Good girl. Now let's go back home, mommy's tired and needs to rest." Weiss tried to put on a smile for her daughter, but Bianca saw the tears in the corners of her eyes.

She was sixteen, not a child.

"Lead the way, mom."

* * *

 **AN: Neva is Latin and a derivative of _nivis_ which means "snow", in case you were wondering.**

 **SP number (Scroll Protocol number) is of course a spoof of IP number (Internet Protocol number).**

 **And once again the villain is hoist by his own petard.**

 **I do not own RWBY, that's RoosterTeeth and Monty Oum.**


End file.
